Apple iTunes for Windows

Today I downloaded the new Apple iTunes for Windows 4.1.0.52. I have used the OS X version a few times on a friend’s PowerBook, but this is my first time testing all of its different features. I use Windows Media Player 9 daily.

When I mentioned to other people that I had downloaded iTunes for Windows and was playing around with it their assumption was that I was buying music with the software. Interesting what features have been getting the most publicity.

iTunes automatically located the Music in the My Music folder of My Documents. When I tried to add an additional folder to my library, unmapped network drives were not an option and there was no space for me to specify the exact location of the folder of interest. (i.e. motherlode )

I ripped a few albums in 128kbps AAC. About 4.3 MB for a 4:30 song. iTunes uses the CDDB database for its album information, which is inferior to Windows Media Player?s database in my opinion. Why? Because when I insert a CD into Media Player it pulls up detailed album information and even the cover art. Lyricists change from song to song, and the individual track information is very interesting. There is no special field to place lyrics, but I decided to enter some into the general comments area of a track.

My entire music library is saved as an XML file. Very cool. Here is the Apple DTD if you are interested.

More to come later as I install iTunes at home, purchase a track or two, try out the radio stations, and have it index my tens of gigabytes worth of WMA, AAC, and MP3 files.